07.11f: Follow the Soulsteel Road

[Joshua]

Thankfully, you can manage to get into one of the windows before a circling winged skeleton spots you, although it does swoop down, so you kinda have to jump in.

Into the kitchen. For those of you not familiar with the delicacy, they are producing a slow-roasted barbecue boar. Animated, of course. The cooks are necro-lizards as well. Thankfully, they were not looking out the window when you enter.

[Chtalo]

Still as a rat, Ch'talo takes a quick look before attempting to scurry out a door towards the rest of the castle. He looks to the boar for a moment, then shakes his head as he darts off, taking a moment to dive away from a shuffling foot or swinging tail along his way.

[Joshua]

As a reminder, the boar is animated as a zombie*. While it is being cooked. So the flesh does turn to you as you make you way out of the room. Thankfully the cooks don't notice.

The whole of the castle seems to be preparing for a feast. Or at least a guest of honor. Perhaps your real quarry. It seems elaborate for a beastman hostage. Unless there was more ceremony that was going to happen**.
______________
*: Seriously, eiw.
**: And the Abyssal has no intention of marrying Rogbar and... seriously, it's a kidnapping! Just business!

[Chtalo]

Ch'talo studies the goings on bemusedly, checking the comings and goings, specifically where the servants seem to be going. That's likely to be where he'll find his next int as to where his prey is. He pauses to sniff the air with bewiskered nose, before scampering along down corridors and steps. Moving carefully as he does, to prevent detection. A rat might travel mostly unnoticed. No other form he had could. But the hunt was on and he could feel his blood beginning to surge at the thought of a confrontation, finally.

[Joshua]

Unfortunately, you are noticed by the only other living things here. The roaches. And by cockroach, i mean 9" long giant insects... At least one is following you, and you keep running into them as you observe the preparations.

[Chtalo]

Once is nothing, twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern. At some point he will start to observe the roaches themselves, seeing what is different besides their rather extraordinary size. And if, perhaps, they are carnivorous, in which case the hunter may have just become the hunted.

The observations of the preparations in general will continue, of course, slowly working towards the center of the action. Trying to spring the right sort of ambush may still be mostly luck, but he didn't become the shadowed Hunter by being foolish or rash. THe time t ostrike was coming soon...

[Joshua]

Well, they do seem to be carnivorous... and gathering in larger and larger numbers as you try to get away from them. You've counted at least two, maybe three dozen, and they're starting to get a little aggressive in their observation. (They're about to attack, that's clear, but you have a higher warfare, so you can choose your location.)

[Chtalo]

Given the choice, he'll try to find a disused room, off the beaten path, preferably something with a door solid enough to muffle the sounds of combat. It very much wouldn't do to be nibbled to death by cockroaches. Not at all. What sort of myth would *that* make?

Once he finds a room to his specifications, he'll let his form flow and "unpack" back into his normal standing form, spear held at the ready.

[Joshua]

The roaches will start to flow into the room... quickly linking like army-ants into a pseudo-humanoid form. At which points, it summons a soul-steel blade out of nowhere and attacks. Your hissing opponent is... while not your equal, clearly a skilled warrior and essence user. Plus, unless you actually hit one of the roaches head-on, their carapaces deflect the spear through the holes in his body.

[Chtalo]

Ch'talo settles into the rhythm of the fight. The element of surprise clearly lost, he will continue to twist and fight off his assailant, taking opportunities when he can to spear single cockroaches to try and kill them. The going is slow, and it may even begin to tire him. As he starts to feel the pressures of time and exhaustion, he will growl a word that refuses to echo, and focuses on his claws, which will lengthen and slowly stretch, glistening and glowing slightly the color and brightness of the full moon, his fangs soon following suit. And with that, the battle will be joined in true earnest.